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Build and Launch

Rosetta on launcher

The payload fairing is lowered over ESA’s Rosetta cometary probe on top of the first Ariane 5G+, in the Final Assembly Building of Ariane Launch Complex 3 at the Guiana Space Centre, Europe’s spaceport, on 18 February 2004. The launcher was transferred to the pad on 24 February but, due to several delays caused by high altitude winds, it lifted off on 2 March 2004.

Owing to delays in the Ariane 5 programme, the initial launch campaign to comet 46P/Wirtanen was interrupted in December 2002 and the mission was redesigned for comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.